The subject matter disclosed herein relates to computer-aided technologies (CAx) such as computer-aided design, engineering, analysis and manufacture in general and apparatus, systems, means, and methods for providing CAx data in particular.
CAx systems are often used to design and analyze large and complex engineering models, including many thousands of parts and features. The size and complexity of CAx databases will only increase as CAx systems are rearchitected to accommodate multiple concurrent users.
Because the time of skilled designers and analysts is valuable, any improvement in the time it takes to load and render a model translates directly to cost savings. However, there is often a trade-off between improved time to load and render a model and flexibility and usability features of the CAx system. For example, CAx system users may want to undo or redo previous edits, revert to a previous revision of the CAx model, or copy a previous revision of the model for archival purposes or to copy to another project. Storing the information needed to perform these actions may significantly increase the time needed to load and render a model.
Given the foregoing, what is needed is additional and improved systems and methods for computer-assisted design and analysis of engineering objects, and in particular, systems and methods for providing CAx data. The embodiments disclosed herein were developed in response to these issues.